School Funding Delay Could Rear Up Again

October 15, 2011

The Memphis City Council appears poised to pay the city school system $70 million despite voting two weeks ago to delay such a payment.

But the terms of the payment remains an issue.

Today’s council session begins at 3:30 pm at City Hall, 125 N. Main. An agenda for the meeting is on Page 11.

Councilman Kemp Conrad is expected to reintroduce the delay approved by the council at its last meeting. If the item is reconsidered, the question then becomes whether to approve it again or substitute some compromise measure.

Some City Council members began talking about the terms of such a compromise with Memphis City Schools Supt. Kriner Cash the day after the council’s earlier decision.

That was the same day a state appeals court ruled the city could not withhold the $70 million it was ordered to pay in an earlier ruling by Chancellor Kenny Armstrong.

The options various council members favor include but are not limited to:

•Paying the $70 million and still appealing to the Tennessee Supreme Court on the larger question of whether the city can cut or abolish any funding for the school system.
•Paying the $70 million in a 30-10-10 plan advocated by Councilman Jim Strickland. The plan would take $30 million from the city’s estimated $98 million budget reserve and make another $10 million in cuts in the current fiscal year budget. The remaining $10 million would come from the amount the city claims it is owed by the school system for decades of bond money to finance school construction and renovation. The school system claims it does not owe the city for the bond money.
•Paying the $70 million with money from the reserve fund and from budget cuts and dropping the court appeal entirely.
•Paying the $70 million with money from the reserve fund, budget cuts and with a one-time property tax hike.
A committee discussion last week revealed most council members still feel they made the right decision in 2008 in deciding to cut the city’s funding to the school system.

The funding cut prompted the system to sue in Chancery Court. School system leaders claim the city cannot cut its share of funding under the state’s “maintenance of effort” law.

On the other side, the city claims that requirement applies to Shelby County government and that the city government’s funding has always come with no requirement to continue it. Shelby County government is the largest local funder of the city school system.

Council Chairman Harold Collins called Cash just hours before the appeals court ruling was released.

“I still believed there was some time for us to work this out if all the parties agreed,” Collins said later. “I still believe in my heart of hearts that what we give to the city schools is a gift and not an obligated payment for education.”

Councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware is among council members who feel the city should pay the money and was wrong to ever withhold it.

“I don’t believe we did the right thing two years ago. And that’s why we are in the dilemma we are in today,” Ware said. “I want to see Memphis City Schools made whole. … They’re still trying to crawl without legs.”